Committee meetings

Text in italics has been added for our purposes including content from our previous rules of incorporation. Plain text is from the Companies Office's Constitution Builder. The help text in boxes is usually that provided by the Constitution Builder to explain requirements. Items in bold are defined terms.

Procedure (mandatory section)

Your society's constitution must cover the procedures for committee meetings, including voting procedures. Choose the number required to form a quorum and whether the committee chairperson has a casting vote.

1. Notice of committee meetings, including the agenda, must be published electronically to the membership not less than 1 week before the date of the meeting, so that the membership can provide feedback to the committee.
2. Agendas must be worded in such a way as to protect the privacy of any individuals to be discussed.
3. The quorum for committee meetings is at least 2/3 the number of members of the committee.
4. A meeting of the committee may be held either -
   1. by a number of the members of the committee who constitute a quorum, being assembled together at the place, date and time appointed for the meeting; or
   2. by means of audio, or audio and visual, communication by which all members of the committee participating and constituting a quorum can simultaneously hear each other throughout the meeting.
5. A resolution of the committee is passed at any meeting of the committee if a majority of the votes cast on it are in favour of the resolution. Every officer on the committee shall have one vote.
6. If the chair is unavailable, the vice-chair will perform the role of chairperson.
7. The chairperson has a casting vote in the event of a tied vote on any resolution of the committee.
8. The committee may choose to invite others, such as (but not limited to) corporate officers and the Kingdom Seneschal, to advise, inform and/or observe, for all or part of a meeting.
9. Except as otherwise provided in this constitution, the committee may regulate its own procedure.

Frequency (recommended section)

This rule is commonly found in society constitutions, and needs to be adapted to suit the needs of each society. It is usual to specify who in the committee is responsible for convening meetings (most commonly the Secretary).

1. The committee shall meet at least monthly, but need only meet once in the December-January period at such times and places and in such manner (including by audio, audio and visual, or electronic communication) as it may determine and otherwise where and as convened by the chair or secretary.
2. Committee meetings may be called by the chair or by 2 other committee members.

Minutes

1. Proper minutes of all proceedings of committee meetings must be kept by the secretary.
2. The minutes for each committee meeting must be reviewed and approved by the committee no later than the next succeeding meeting.
3. Duly recorded and approved minutes are, until proven otherwise, evidence that the meeting was convened and duly held, and all proceedings at the meeting have been duly held, and that appointments made at the meeting are valid.
4. Minutes of committee meetings will be published on SCANZ's website (sca.org.nz), within four (4) weeks after the date of the meeting.
5. Any letter or document sent to the committee and cited in the minutes will be considered a public document.
   1. These may be obtained from the secretary by a written request as long as this request itself can be considered a public document.
   2. The committee will honour requests for privacy and rights of authorship.
   3. If the author of a communication stipulates at the time that it be kept private, it will not be cited in the minutes or distributed outside the committee or the appropriate officers of SCANZ unless the author's permission has been obtained first.
6. The committee will not receive, consider or act on anonymous communications.
7. All electronic votes held by the committee between committee meetings will be listed in the next set of committee minutes.